The 15th century tower appears to dominate the whole village, rising as it
does almost directly from the road.
The tower has angled buttresses and a NE stair turret. It has a
passage through the base of the tower, unique to
Kent
and relatively rare in
England, with three bay rib vaulting.
The passage was probably made to allow the annual
Corpus Christi procession around the Church without
needing to go outside consecrated ground, as the tower forms part of the
western boundary of the churchyard.
On the west side of the passage there is a large piece of sandstone
with curious marks.
These were
probably made by archers sharpening their arrows on the stone on their way
to the butts for archery practice.
Alternatively they may be remnants of crosses which were often
incised on external walls or perhaps wear from pilgrims marking what might
have been a holy stone with the sign of the cross.
The clock was made in 1614 and is probably one of the oldest church clocks
in the country.
It is still in
excellent mechanical order.
It
has a carillon (repeater) and is capable of playing one of five selectable
tunes at selected hours.
The
tunes were originally all hymns but in 1754 a popular song of the time "The
Captain with his whiskers, took a sly glance at
me." was substituted for one of the hymns.
In 1968 the clock winding mechanism was "improved" so that it could
be wound by electric motors rather than hand winding which had to be carried
out daily.
This was done
without making any alteration to the clock mechanism.